You there, pour yourself a cooling libation and leave the troubles of the day behind for a bit. There you go, everything cool? I hope so because unlike the world of matchplay golf, I want you to be as comfortable as possible when you read this.
For you, for me, for Vijay Singh, for Ernie Els and for Adam Scott, it's all about comfort level. I like to be comfortable and I am sure you do as well. But Singh, Els and Scott, they don't want some people to be too comfortable, most notably the American team who shellacked the International team, consisting of all the top non-European players, 191/2 to 141/2 last week at the Presidents Cup in Montreal.
According to the Fijian, South African and Australian a large part of the reason their team lost was because the Americans, the visiting squad, were far too comfortable.
'I think [the Americans] are very comfortable with us,' said Singh. 'We play on the US Tour. Most of our friends are Americans. We go out, we play practice rounds with the guys. When they play against the European side, they don't even know half the side, how they play, how they interact.'
The fact that Montreal is a scant 100km from the American border apparently played a large part in the International defeat as well. 'The two tournaments that we did well in were way south,' said Els, referring to the 1998 and 2003 events, where the Internationals won and tied, in Australia and South Africa respectively.
Added Aussie Scott: 'We need not be afraid of sending it down south, because that is an advantage for us. The Americans need to get outside their comfort zone for us to do well.'